-By Professor R. M. Carter
James Cook University, Townsville
Throughout the world, media news outlets have uncritically adopted the IPCC’s climate alarmism in their reporting and editorial stances. For example, a typical, egregiously untrue newspaper statement is that “every credible piece of scientific advice we now have, including that of Australia’s peak scientific body, the CSIRO, tells us climate change is accelerating faster than previously feared” (Melbourne Sun Herald, Jan., 2008). One sense of the word “science” is that it is “the state or fact of knowing” (OED, definition 1), which state of grace is obviously assumed by both the CSIRO and the Sun Herald’s reporter. Another more widely accepted view of science is that it comprises a body of facts and general laws that are arrived at by “trustworthy methods for the discovery of new truth” (OED, definition 2); these methods include observation, experiment and logical analysis – all towards the end of testing hypotheses that are put forward to account for known facts.
The hypothesis of the day is that human-caused CO2 emissions will result in dangerous global warming.
TEST 1 asks whether dangerous warming is actually occurring. Temperature measurements using ground-based thermometers, balloon-mounted radiosondes and satellite-mounted microwave sensing units all agree that no warming has occurred since 1998; indeed, once account is taken of the urban heat island effect on ground thermometers, little warming can be demonstrated since 1980 despite a 55 ppm (17%) increase in atmospheric CO2.since then.
TEST 2 asks whether temperature changes that have occurred since the mid-20th century lie outside the range of previous natural variation in either magnitude or rate. The answer is uniformly “no” as tested against datasets that span time scales of hundreds, thousands, tens and hundreds of thousands, and millions of years.
TEST 3 asks whether changes in the presumed cause (CO2 increase) occur before changes in the presumed effect (temperature increase). Data from Antarctic ice cores show unequivocally that the answer to this question also is “no”, i.e. the presumed effect predates the presumed cause.
TEST 4 asks whether a close correlation exists between the monotonic increase seen in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the 20th century and the global temperature curve. The answer is that the two curves are uncorrelated, with the steepest increase in CO2 occurring between 1940 and 1980 at precisely the same time that global temperature cooled for several decades.
TEST 5 notes that theoretical calculations and modelling predict that greenhouse-forced warming should increase near the poles and also with height gained in the tropical troposphere, and asks whether this “fingerprint” pattern is replicated by modern temperature observations. The answer is that observations demonstrate precisely the opposite, with cooling in Antarctica and more warming at the tropical surface than occurs above in the troposphere.
The hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming thus fails five separate empirical or experimental tests. Einstein is reputed to have remarked that just one fact was all that was needed to invalidate his theory of relativity; the IPCC’s requirements for the disproof of dangerous global warming are obviously higher. Attempting to “stop global warming” by restricting human emissions of CO2 is an expensive act of utter futility, the presumptuous moral piety of which has already produced power crises in many countries, accompanied by rent-seeking and dangerous economic instability. The only sensible thing to do about (both natural and possible human-caused) climate change is to prepare to adapt to it as it occurs, in both directions. For generally benign warmings and the much more dangerous coolings are both certain to recur in the future, and significant evidence exists that strong cooling may be imminent.